I don’t think we actually had any strategic goals for WWII. And yes they probably should have been. One of the big changes we’ve had the last few decades in how we view the world is the realization that if all you do with one war is set the stage for the next that first war was kind of pointless. And expending large quantities of human lives and pointless should really never be in the same sentence.
I'd say you're quite wrong in that assessment. You're dragging in baggage from follow-on decades that were only vaguely foreseen by a few people. With the at-the-time information available to national and coalition war planners, WWII was one hell of a success against a tough enemy, and Soviet involvement was key since a) the Germans were already on their soil, and b) the gigantic losses inflicted on the Germans due to their own strategic and operational blundering assured our success in the West.